The Teddy Bear Bee is distinguishable by their charming chubby bodies! Only around 15mm long, these non aggressive bees simply want to get on with the job of collecting nectar and pollen for their nest. Teddy Bear Bees are solitary bees, this means that each female builds an individual nest for herself in a small burrow in the soil. However, some like to build nests in a more sheltered location such as a creek bank or underneath a house!
The Teddy Bear Bee collects pollen using thick fur on their legs. This pollen is collected for the Teddy Bear Bee's offspring. As the bees travel from plant to plant they transfer pollen along the way allowing for the plant to be fertilised! This transfer of pollen (the male part) to the stigma (the female flower part) leads to the fertilisation of the ovule which in turn creates seeds that then turn into fruit.
You can find the Bees Please MBD Teddy Bear Bee enamel pin right here!
Thanks to @dominics.photography for both Teddy Bear Bee pictures
]]>Australia has eleven different species of these small loveable bees! At only 4mm long, some species are black with white fur on their faces and sides, and others are black with small yellow markings on their backs. Since these little bees are tropical, they thrive in warm areas of Australia, such as Queensland, northern areas of WA and NT, and north-eastern areas of NSW. They build resin enriched nests inside hollow trees but can also be found in hives in the gardens of hundreds of Aussies! The Tetragonula Carbonaria create cells in their hives that are are a single layer of hexagonal combs built in a distinctive spiral. The Austroplebeia species live in more arid areas and therefore build their nests a little differently using dead trees and the hollows of other plant life where they create a more random nest structure called a cluster brood.
Our Aussie Native Stingless Bees are great at pollinating many fruits such as mangoes watermelons and lychees. They are also very important in pollinating our blueberries due to their small size the Stingless Natives can fit where the Honey Bees cannot.
One of the newest Enamel pin releases at Bees Please MBD, you can find these little pollinator pins right here!
Amazing pictures by Geoffrey Dutton
]]>The Peacock Carpenter Bee has bright metallic colours that change with light! They are pretty easy to notice, despite their changing appearance, as they make a deep droning noise when flying from flower to flower. The female excavates a tunnel inside of soft dead timber with her jaws and picks up and dumps the wood shavings outside, This is where they get their "Carpenter" name. Their hollows can reach up to 30 centimetres!
The Metallic Carpenter Bee is one of Australia's buzz pollinators! These bees grab onto a flower and move their little flight muscles, causing the flower to vibrate. There are many plants that require this type of pollination and not as may bees that can provide this which makes these native bees so important!
Bees Please MBD's second enamel pin launch features the Metallic Carpenter bee! Check it out here.
Thanks to @jeremycology for the awesome pic
]]>The Blue Banded Bee is about 11mm long and has a band of iridescent blue fur across their black abdomen. They like to build their nests in a shallow burrow in clay soil or sometimes in mud bricks all throughout Australia!
A Blue Banded Bee buzz pollinates in a different way to other native bees as they head bang! a BB Bee will bang their head on the anther of a flower 320 times per second to release the pollen in those flowers that are playing hard to get.
The Blue Banded Bee was the first Australian Native Bee to feature as an enamel pin in the Bees Please MBD shop! Click here to have a look.
Thanks to @onephatasian and @hirenkadikar
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